An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

something either of a man, or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion, but to gain the favour of those whose service it requires.

This, however, is not the effect of any contract, but of the accidental concurrence of their passions in the same object at that particular time.

When an animal wants to obtain

It is in this manner that the policy of Europe, by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise be disposed to enter into them, occasions a very important inequality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock. Secondly, The policy of Europe, by increa

Every town draws its whole subsistence, and all the materials of its industry, from the: country. It pays for these chiefly in two ways. First, by sending back to the country a part of those materials wrought up and manufactured; in which case, their price is augmented by the wages of the workmen, and the profits of their masters or immediate emplo

Whenever the law has attempted to regulate the wages of workmen, it has always been rather to lower them than to raise them.

It is to prevent his reduction of price, and consequently of wages and profit, by restraining that free competition which would most certainly occasion it, that all corporations, and the greater part of corporation laws have been established. In order to erect a corporation, no other authority in ancient times was requisite, in many parts of Europe

curates,

The institution of long apprenticeships can give no security that insufficient workmanship shall not frequently be exposed to public sale. When this is done, it is generally the effect of fraud, and not of inability; and the longest apprenticeship can give no security against fraud. Quite different regulations are necessary to prevent this abuse. T